MEPs reject deal on aviation emissions scheme

decide whether foreign airlines should be made to pay for their CO2 emissions in European Union airspace. This follows a vote in the environment committee today (19 March) in which MEPs narrowly rejected a controversial plan to give non-EU airlines exemptions from obligations under the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Two weeks ago negotiators from the Parliament reached a deal with member states that would scale back the European Commission’s proposal to regulate all aviation emissions in EU airspace, so that it would cover only flights between EU airports until 2016.

The centre-right European People’s Party and European Conservatives and Reformists voted in favour of the deal, and the Socialists and Democrats, the Liberals and the Greens opposed it. The deal will now be taken to a plenary session in Brussels on 3 April. Chris Davies, a UK liberal MEP who voted against the deal, said that the committee vote would probably be overturned in plenary but that it nonetheless “shows a strong signal of our discontent”.

MEPs were under pressure to back the deal from member states – led by France, Germany and the UK – that fear a potential trade war. But many members of the committee opposed the idea of amending EU legislation because foreign governments have demanded it, particularly since the European Court of Justice has ruled that the law complies with international law.

Final rejection of the deal in plenary would mean an immediate crisis as a ‘stop-the-clock’ temporary exemption expires in April. This means that foreign airlines would have to pay for all their emissions for flights in or out of an EU airport.